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The purpose of this paper is to analyze the impact of information technology (IT) competency on knowledge management processes and the relations among IT competency, knowledge management processes and performance outcomes.

The study uses survey data from 162 managers and structural equation modeling to assess the links between IT competency, knowledge management processes and firm performance.

First, this study finds that IT competency plays a critical role in knowledge management processes. Second, knowledge management processes are directly related to market performance, which, in turn, is directly related to financial performance. Third, no direct relation exists between IT competency and firm performance. Knowledge management processes mediate the relation between IT competency and market performance.

The research is cross‐sectional, so cause‐effect relations cannot be definitively inferred from the results.

The findings indicate that managers should not only focus on allocating sufficient resources for IT investments. To achieve better performance, these technologies need to be used to support the development of the knowledge management processes.

This study contributes to knowledge management research, identifying a key antecedent of knowledge management processes – IT competency – and analyzing the link between knowledge management processes and performance. Moreover, this study is relevant to IT literature because it shows that IT competency, on its own, is insufficient to generate and maintain a competitive advantage. Firms need complementary strategic capabilities such as knowledge management to strengthen the effect of IT competency on firm performance.

With the decline of some well‐established firms, the diminishing competitive power of many companies in an increasingly globalized market and the need for organizational renewal and transformation, interest in organizational learning has grown. Senior managers in many organizations are convinced of the importance of improving learning in their organizations. Therefore, it is necessary not only to clarify the concept of organizational learning, but also to establish the relationship between it and business performance. This paper aims to explore this relationship.

The degree to which organizational learning influences business performance is investigated for 195 Spanish firms with more than 200 employees using the statistical technique of structural equation modeling.

The results provide support for the view that organizational learning contributes positively both to innovation and competitiveness and to economic/financial results. Furthermore, the results show a positive relationship between innovation and competitiveness and economic/financial results.

Clarifies the concept of organizational learning and establishes the relationship between it and business performance.

Aims to analyze how the organizational culture impacts knowledge management, organizational learning and ultimately the performance of the firm. The degree to which collaborative culture influences organizational learning and performance is investigated for 195 Spanish firms. The technique used was structural equation modeling (SEM). The results show, first of all, that collaborative culture encourages the development of organizational learning, which at the same time, has a significant effect on business performance. And, second, it is highlighted that collaborative culture does not constitute in itself a source of competitive advantages. Collaborative culture must modify, through learning, the organization’s guidelines and attitudes in order to improve competitive performance. Perhaps the most significant limitation of the study is associated with the use of cross‐sectional data. While we presented and tested models in which we assumed a causal flow from collaborative culture to organizational learning to organizational performance, there is the possibility that these relationships may occur in reverse order. In future researches it would be interesting to analyze the influence that other variables, such organizational structure, leadership and corporate strategy have on learning. The establishment of a knowledge strategy can be determined by a global approach, which affects all fields in organization. For knowledge management initiatives to be truly effective must take into account the social contexts in which learning take place. Culture need to be re‐examined in light of its role in managing the overall organizational learning infrastructure. This study provides empirical evidence for the hypothesis that collaborative culture influences organizational learning which in turn influences business performance. The current study provides some understanding of the manner in which collaborative culture influence organizational outcomes.

This paper aims to investigate how implying movement in food packaging imagery may affect product liking. Furthermore, the underlying mechanism is investigated by studying the effect of implied motion visuals on design appeal and naturalness perception.

Two packages of pineapple juice were designed in which the implied motion depicted in their imagery was manipulated, and a tasting experiment was conducted in which two samples of the same juice were evaluated.

The results show that the effect of packaging imagery on product liking occurs indirectly through both design appeal and the product naturalness perception. The results of a parallel multiple-mediator analysis show that (1) depicting implied motion made the package be perceived as more appealing, (2) the product corresponding to the package depicting implied motion was perceived as being more natural, and (3) both effects equally contributed to the positive effect of visuals depicting implied motion on product liking.

Overall, these findings widen our understanding of the effects of packaging design on product liking and may help both designers and manufacturers design more appropriate packaging for their products.

This paper aims to broadly address a PhD research stream that the author has been conducting to date, whose historical objective is press photography, specifically the published images in La Jornada newspaper. A visual speech of the various contexts lived in Mexico at the end of the twentieth century. In the following lines, the author will present her methodology proposal with the aim of learning and analyzing the speech created by press photography and its relation to historical reality. A journalistic speech generating a language describing events, but at the same time a language manipulated by the subjectivity of the author – the press photographer. A historical timeline of which the photojournalist was part and which influenced the manner historical reality was perceived by the receiving social group.

It is important to clarify that this database does not intend to replace the estimations which could be obtained by directly and individually analyzing each photograph. However, this instrument has allowed the author to collect a great quantity of readable graphic and textual information, as well as to describe the characteristic attributes of each image as a documentary unit. In other words, the author intends to address the visual events as a part of the historical events, as claimed by the Mexican historian Ricardo Pérez Montfort. This to provide an in-depth study on how historical, social, cultural and political phenomena were registered by press photography; not omitting history, this specific moment, punctually requires photography and written journalism as a vestige. The latter not only with the purpose of going further on the functions of photography but also on the significance of the photographic phenomenon and the visual speech within social and cultural history of a country.

Furthermore, the author will present, to the extent possible, some elements which have allowed the identification of the manner in which the editor(s) of the newspaper impacted the presentation of visual speech, as well as the interests and visions of the social group they represent. This is a way to go further on different assumptions, such as the person taking the picture, the person editing it – after reaching the editorial and ideological line of the newspaper – as well as the person publishing the picture; a new manner to address editorial work and photojournalism on written media. To achieve the aforementioned aim, this essay comprehends the intertextuality and visual production, as well as the contexts lived throughout the six-year Presidential terms of office of Miguel de la Madrid Hurtado, Carlos Salinas de Gortari and Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de León, through diverse published images in La Jornada newspaper from 1984 to 2000.

This research not only addresses the generated material by the photojournalists of La Jornada newspaper during this period but also includes, as a part of the oral history methodology, the testimonies of some assistant directors, people in charge of the photography department, the editor, the designer and photographers who stood out in the newspaper. In addition, the author has a database which has allowed to collect, store and connect information present in each of the photographs published on different covers and back covers of the newspaper. It comprises 15 categories which have been nurturing the database (reviewed dates, journalistic and photographic genders, reporters, pages, published photographs, photograph format, themes of the photographs, places, characters, titles of the photographs, photograph caption, credit, photograph composition, angle and time). It is important to clarify that this database does not intend to replace the estimations which could be obtained from directly and individually analyzing each photograph. However, this instrument has allowed the author to collect a great quantity of readable graphic and textual information, as well as to describe the characteristic attributes of each image as a documentary unit.

This paper aims to study the relationship between employment and tourism activities as well as economic variables for the 32 states of Mexico for the period 1999-2014.

To study the case of Mexico, the authors use panel data and cointegration panel data. They also use geographic information systems to observe changes over time between the variables, which is useful in the empirical evidence.

The main results obtained by the models are as following: domestic tourism is the variable with the greatest impact on the generation of direct employment in the tourism sector, a finding supported by both methodologies; economic growth (measured by state gross domestic product) also directly impacts the generation of employment; and the cointegration of the panels causes a long-term equilibrium among the states and some variables.

The model used leaves out other variables that may influence the performance of the tourist activity. In addition, given the availability of official and homogeneous information, it only covers what has been documented up to 2014.

The aim is to measure the impact of tourism on the variables at the state level, where the economic activities could be based on public policies, as well as the importance of tourism activities in generating employment. In this sense, the impact would be in channeling efforts to support the main economic activities and could serve as a starting point for the evaluation of programs to promote domestic tourism.

This paper reviews the relationship that exists between tourism activity and its effect on other variables, especially employment. It is the first time that these topics are studied for the Mexican economy.

This paper proposes a framework for the implementation of sustainability practices by individual companies and corresponding supply chains (SCs), considering the various SC tiers, the three dimensions of sustainability and the following critical areas: Governance, Product and Process, Customers and Suppliers Management, and Stakeholder focus.

Using several case studies of small- and medium-size companies, a qualitative methodology is used to develop the proposed framework.

The analysis of these case studies makes it possible to identify the sustainability practices that are the most important for practitioners, thereby reducing the number of sustainability practices specified in the literature and giving some insights regarding which should be used in addressing critical areas. A set of guidelines and actions is also suggested for managers to continue the path of sustainability.

Further studies in other cultural and national realities and industrial contexts are desirable to assess the proposed framework's suitability and the results obtained.

The results of this study show that the practices implemented are highly dependent on the resources that the company can mobilize and, on the choices, and commitment to sustainability on the part of top management.

The authors propose a framework to help individual companies and corresponding SCs to implement sustainability practices considering the various dimensions of sustainability, critical areas and SC's various partners.

This paper empirically addresses the effect of coercive, normative and mimetic pressures on sustainability results, focussing on the three dimensions of the triple bottom line approach: environmental, economic and social. The mediating role of compliance, analyser or proactive corporate strategies towards sustainability is also considered.

The hypotheses developed in this study were tested using data from a sample of private companies from two industries: manufacture of chemicals and chemical products, and manufacture of basic metals.

The results confirm the role played by institutional pressures for sustainability in explaining the involvement of organisations in economic, social and environmental aspects. The mediating effect of corporate strategy is also confirmed, although only for environmental aspects.

Research into sustainability development is evolving rapidly; however, few studies have explored its diffusion amongst organisations from a triple bottom line perspective by considering the role of different current external pressures, the corporate strategy and the diverse results.

本研究擬對強制壓力、規範壓力和模仿壓力對可持續性成果的影響進行實證研究。研究的焦點放在三重底線法的三個層面上,即是環境層面、經濟層面和社會層面。研究人員亦探討尋求可持續性的承諾、分析儀和積極主動的公司戰略的中介作用。

研究人員測試其建立的各項假設; 使用的數據取自兩個企業的私人公司的樣本,它們是製造化學品和化學產品的企業,以及製造基本金屬的企業。

研究結果確認了尋求可持續性所帶來的制度壓力,在解說企業於經濟、社會和環境三方面的參與上所扮演的角色。研究結果亦確認了公司戰略的中介作用,唯這只見於環境的層面上。

探討可持續性發展的學術研究發展迅速,唯當中較少從三個基本的角度去探討可持續性發展在組織內的傳播; 本研究考慮了目前各種外來壓力、公司戰略和不同的結果所扮演的角色,以彌補這研究差距。

Discovering opportunities is a key entrepreneurship competence for those who want to start their own business and who choose to enter the workforce. In this study, the authors focus on the antecedents of the ability to discover entrepreneurial opportunities by uncovering how and when students' personal initiative (Frese and Fay, 2001) leads to an increase in this key competency. The purpose of this study was to examine the role of risk-taking and creativity in the interplay between personal initiative and opportunity discovery competencies among university students.

Data were collected with a self-assessment tool in two moments in time, using a sample of 103 university students from Portugal enrolled in an entrepreneurship course. The authors measured personal initiative and entrepreneurial risk-taking at the beginning of the entrepreneurship course (Time 1). Two months later (Time 2), by the end of an entrepreneurship course, the authors measured creativity and opportunity discovery abilities.

The results of this study showed that risk-taking mediates the effect of personal initiative on opportunity discovery and that creativity interacts with risk-taking and opportunity discovery. Specifically, the authors found that the relationship between entrepreneurial risk-taking and opportunity discovery is positive and statistically significant when students display average or above-average creativity. The indirect effect of the personal initiative on opportunity discovery through entrepreneurial risk-taking seems to increase when the student's creativity increases, as the index of moderated mediation is positive.

As with all studies, there are limitations to work of this study. First, data of this study is restricted to a sample of students from Portugal. As such, the authors should be careful about generalizations concerning students from other cultural settings; entrepreneurship competencies can differ across countries. Second, the findings of the present study are based on students’ self-reports regarding their own entrepreneurship competencies.

This work can inspire entrepreneurship educators to look at the entrepreneurship competencies models holistically and inspire future work to explore the relationship patterns between entrepreneurial competencies.